1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for incinerating hazardous waste, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for incinerating infectious hazardous waste such as hospital waste.
2. Description of the Related Art
Infectious waste can be defined as that waste which, unless processed, disposed, stored, collected or transported with caution, is or may be contaminated by a disease-producing microorganism or may harm or threaten human health. The term infectious waste includes, among others, the following types of waste: waste generated by hospitalized patients who are isolated, or on blood and body fluid precautions, in order to protect others from their communicable disease; cultures and stocks of etiologic agents; animal waste blood and animal blood products which are known or suspected to contain contagious zoonotic pathogens, and human waste blood and blood products; tissues, organs, body parts, blood, and body fluids that are removed during surgery and autopsies; wastes that were in contact with pathogens in any type of laboratory work; carcasses and body parts of animals exposed to contagious zoonotic pathogens; waste biologicals, for example vaccines, produced by pharmaceutical companies for human or veterinary use; and food and other products or equipment that are discarded because of contamination with etiologic agents.
Many of the above types of infectious waste are generated at hospital sites. Hospitals are currently experiencing much difficulty in properly disposing of this waste. This is, in part, because the waste generated at hospital sites includes a variety of constituents having different moisture contents and densities. The varied characteristics of waste generated by a hospital complicates the disposal process, including the handling of ash generated by incineration of the waste. Thus, there is a particular need for an apparatus and method of disposing of such infectious hospital waste.
Traditional disposal technology such as landfill and incineration have been suggested as alternatives for disposing of infectious waste. However, traditional technology has shortcomings which prohibit its use in disposing of infectious waste such as that found at hospitals. For instance, the number of available landfills that can handle such waste materials is decreasing each year. Also, traditional incineration does not allow for sufficient residence time to ensure that all infectious waste has been fully incinerated. Moreover, traditional incinerators encounter difficulty maintaining stable combustion of hospital waste because of its non-uniform nature.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an incineration apparatus that can maintain a stable temperature while incinerating waste of a non-uniform nature.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for incinerating infectious hospital waste that will provide sufficient residence time for complete incineration.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a cost-effective and reliable apparatus and method to dispose of hazardous waste.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.